This black and white thing got my attention Saturday evening. The day was long and fairly uneventful for me, as my present spouse was out of the house most of the day, and I was left alone. What should old people do when they are left alone?
I am sure everyone knows the old saying. “An idle mine is the devil’s work shop”, well, I was attempting to keep the workshop as my own, and keep the devil away. I watched TV some, I turned on a couple amateur radios (ham radios) and listened for a while, I even read some in one of the amateur radio books.
I find that I have not used and more or less forgotten a lot of information during the years that I have not work with amateur radio. I am trying to ease my way back into the hobby and it looks like I will have to relearn many things. When I tested for my advanced license I not only had to pass the written test but I also had to receive (understand) Morse Code at 13 words per minute and answer questions about the coded message.
Heck, I was a Charter member of the local amateur TV group. Yes, we transmitted and received TV signals through our radio equipment. One day when I was at work doing a walk through the building, one of the employees said that she saw me on TV. I was very surprised at the comment and I asked how. She said she did not have cable and that she was flipping through the channels. She decided to see if there were other channels that she did not know about. As she kept flipping all of a sudden there I was on her TV.
I have as usual, strayed from the topic. I will attempt to get back to, the Black and White topic. There I was home alone all day except for a few minutes when I decided to get some fresh air and a cup of coffee from Star Bucks’. The coffee was strong and hot as I enjoyed being out of the house for a few minutes even though the weather was cold and wet.
Returning to, “The Ford Homestead” I even took some time to work on a Spanish lesson. I assume I am learning, but it is not the method I had expected.
My spouse of 45 years arrived home late afternoon. After a short rest she prepared our evening meal. It was good as usual and I offered to wash the dishes, which unfortunately she gladly accepted.
It was a little before 7:00 and I had completed my manly tasks of cleaning the dishes when the TCM channel was talking about the next movie. I missed the name but I do know it was made in the 20s (that is 1920s) in Germany. They said it was made before Hitler come into power. This movie was a silent movie and it was black and white.
The movie was about a futuristic city, ran by one man. There were two classes of people, the workers and the upper class that did nothing but have fun. The workers marched slowly to work as other workers marched slowly away from work. The work was all done under ground. These workers had to keep the machines running which provided power, water and everything needed for those upper class people that did not work.
The hero in the movie was the son of the man that ran the city. Later in the movie he became known as the, Mediator”. There was a woman that would secretly teach Christen principles to the workers after their work was done.
There was a scientists that had built a robot for himself. Trying to make this as short as I can I am leaving out a lot. The man that run the city found out about the woman who was teaching the workers and wanted her stopped. He went to the scientist and they decided to make the robot look like the woman teacher but program her to be evil.
The workers stopped working and everything went to heck in a hand bag. The city power went off water lines broke and the rich people lost everything but the workers became the winners. They destroyed the robot and the good guy got the girl.
This black and white silent movie went on for two and a half hours, it even had and intermission. I normally lose interest in 5 to 10 minutes but I watched the entire movie.
I find it enjoyable to watch what was considered as acting and story plots in the olden day movies.
On a different subject:
We have two sons, both have a birthday this month, which is difficult for those of us on a fixed income. I called the youngest and noted that his birthday is the 12th. I asked, “How old are you going to be”, and he said 20, to which I said maybe you should double it. I also noted that he seemed to have trouble saying that he will be 40. Our oldest son has a birthday on the 28th, and he will be 44 years old. It is difficult to believe that I have children that old. I must have been a child when I got married.
Watch a black and white movie once in a while,
They are not as stressful as the modern movies.
Don Ford
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